students are here: new best friends

It's been a crazy and joyous 24 hours. All of the students have arrived safely and are now at the dorm for the evening.

First things first, late last night we went to the airport to pick up two students, Aby and Lauren, flying separately for miscellaneous reasons. We got there around 7:15 and had to wait for an extra hour because of visa issues (yay). Then we went with Aby for a pizza dinner before my dad went back to the airport for Lauren who flew in around midnight.

This morning was an early one (out of the house by 8 am!) when we were heading back the the airport. We got there and they arrived pretty quickly all together which was handy. Loaded quickly into airport vans and off to the dorms we were. Pretty true to the promise we were made a week ago the dorm rooms were for the most part done with construction (clean is a bit iffy but we'll take what we can get). A quick briefing of information by my dad and the three of us Boumans were going to change money for the students.

 About seven hours after arriving at their new homes the students were thrown an informal welcome party by a couple Hungarian students and one professor. A special surprise was being shown and taught traditional Hungarian dances. Three students had on costumes to match their dancing. After being shown one full dance and a bit of another it was our turn to join the fun. They taught us a dance called The Path of the Devil. After the party wound down we started to prepare for the traditional hike up Gellert Hill.

The hike up the hill was not surprisingly harder than anticipated but the view was very much worth it as the sun was setting casting a gorgeous light on the city. Hanging out at the top for quite a while - partly catching our breath and partly in awe of the view. After a fair few photos we were on our way back down and towards pizza.

A delicious meal and delightful conversation later everyone was ready to head back and finally get some sleep. Now it is safe to say that any worry I'd been having about not liking the students as much as the 2011 group (a hard group to follow up) or the students not liking me (us) were pointless because they are all lovely. Many laughs throughout the day indicate a great semester ahead of us.

inside a hungarian home; a shot of champagne

This morning around 11 we were invited to meet Kati, the Hungarian woman who teaches the Hungarian language class for the students, at her house for an early lunch and to play scrabble. We first had to catch the subway to take us under the river to the Buda side of Budapest. Then we transferred to a bus that took us up into the Buda hills where Kati was waiting at our stop. A bit of greeting, and her realizing I've grown a few inches and lost the braces, and we were off to her flat.

Walking into her apartment was quite cool. I asked my mom for help describing it and she said "imagine the inside of a little cabin in the woods of a fairytale", but really that's correct. There was a large number of books along the wall, a mandolin, and right out on her patio type place a small garden area.

For lunch we had a selection of breads including: pogacsa, whole wheat, kifli, and these long harder pogacsa. Also we had salad with cranberries, tomatoes, almonds, cheese, and dressing (there was also ham but i picked that out - oops). Then after the meal Kati presented us with cakes from a local bakery and the option of coffee or tea. They were delicious.

Then we segued into scrabble. But first champagne. Kati asked how old I was and then seeing I was not 18 (the legal drinking age of Hungary) she said she had the perfect glass for me. Coming back with three full sized champaign glasses and one mini shot sized but champagne looking glass for me. Mostly the champagne tasted like bubbly white grape juice plus alcohol (obviously). I felt like there was a surprisingly large amount of liquid in my tiny glass and don't know if it really impacted me at all but I think it made my throat feel warm.

Okay, on to scrabble. The only woman with English as her second language proceeded to kill all the native speakers at a language game. We played two rounds. The first round I came in a close second to her 180 points with 153 (after gaining all of their subtracted points for going out first). But the glory of the first game came to a quick end when I lost pretty bad the second game not even breaking 100 points.

After kissing Kati goodbye (on both cheeks, a custom we've been getting used to again) we were on our way back with a little bit of sprinkle coming down on us. Running to catch the bus and we were out. The rest of the day has been spent chilling in the apartment as the rain continues, and there are currently pizzas in the oven getting ready to eat and Bastian is on Skype showing us the garden we are missing back in G-Rap.

todays adventures

The past 24 hours are what I am going to be counting as "Today" just FYI because technically its parts of two days.

Last night around 9 we decided to go out to see Margit island at night, and we got so much more than we bargained for, but I'll get to that. First we took a long bus ride to the far end of the island so we could make our way back towards our apartment. Once on the island in front of Palatinus Strand (a pool/ water park type place) we bought some snacks - a pretzel, an ice cream bar, and a beer (fun game - guess which family member got what) and were on our way. We were going to see if a fountain that we had seen before which played music and had choreographed jets by day would be playing at night. But first we made another stop for some cotton candy, which was huge, delicious & very sticky. Then we came around some trees and saw the fountain but it was much better than we expected. Not only was it on moving to the music but there were different color lights moving and changing to the songs. My dad was especially enthralled. We took some video and a bunch of pictures so I'll put some here:

           
All that excitement made us ready for bed. This morning I did not wake up particularly early but decided I wanted to go out to Heroes' Square and the big city park as well as do a tad bit of shopping. So about 2:30 pm (8:30 am for those of you in Grand Rapids) I set out for the metro which would take me to another metro which would take me to Heroes' Square. When you walk up the metro steps to the square it's quite the impressive view. I'll put a picture below.

After snapping some more photos I meandered my way to the park and through some castley looking courtyard museum. I walked right through some fancy looking event that was either about to start or had just finished (but don't worry there were other tourists doing the same thing as me). After which I proceeded on through the park not to sure where I was headed. Which turned out to not be the greatest idea when I got a tad bit lost. I knew I was still in the park but compared to anything I was not too sure, so I ended up making a large circle and finding a bus that would take me back to Heroes' Square. Throughout my walk I learned that it is not uncommon to go to a park to tan because - no pool in sight I saw nearly ten people stretched out in bathing suits (and remember I'm in Europe
so this meant more speedos than I would have liked).

Returning home from that excitement I saw my dad at a fountain near our apartment. Then I relaxed at our apartment for a bit while my mom made alphabet soup for dinner. Around 7 we met two Hungarian girls who had come to Calvin for interim the first we had already hung out with one of our first evenings. With them we went down to the Danube (the big river running through the middle of the city separating Buda and Pest). We walked for a while looking for the dock for the public transportation ferry. Finally we found one but it turned out that stop was closed during Sziget fest (this week) so we kept walking. When we found a real stop we waited for about 20 minutes and got on the boat. We quickly figured out that the boat was basically just for tourists because it did not move very fast at all. At one point Lena was talking about a turtle she had seen in the Danube a different time and made a comment that the turtle could probably swim faster than the boat we were on. We got off near Margit Island and made our way back to the musical fountain. I wanted to get cotton candy again so my mom & I walked to the food stands and on our way a hedgehog crawled across the path in front of us! It was rather bizarre seeing a hedgehog not as a pet. (I ended up getting strawberry cotton candy if you were curious.)

Now we are back at our apartment getting ready for bed as it is nearly midnight. I hope you enjoyed this day as much as I did.

Goodnight.

home away from home: back in budapest

After arriving around 3:30 pm local time (9:30 am Grand Rapids time) yesterday we've been reacquainted with our apartment, slept, and seen some familiar beautiful sights.

If you are unaware or just confused about where I am, for how long, or who with read this paragraph - if not skip to the next one. My dad works for Calvin College and is leading the semester abroad program to Budapest, Hungary. Which means, I will be living in an apartment downtown Budapest with my mom and dad (we left my brother home to go to college - his blog is boumanbythegrand.blogspot.com ) for 5 months.

Synopsis of the last few crazy days: Day One Sunday August 3, 2014 we went to the GR airport around 3 to say goodbye to Bastian and Grandpa B, who accompanied us, and to get through security before our 5 o'clock flight. Then a quick flight to Atlanta and a transfer to our 8 hour flight to Paris. On the long flight there was no sleep for me as I watched four movies: The Lego Movie, Endless Love, Divergent, and The Little Mermaid. After arriving in Paris we had about 30 minutes of wait before we boarded our final flight to Budapest. On this flight I fell asleep hard for about an hour so I don't remember much. Finally we were in Budapest! I had a proud moment of having 300 forints (the currency, 1 dollar is about 230 forints) in my wallet to pay for a trolley to put our luggage on. We took a taxi into the city to our apartment and started feeling really excited when we could recognize things and places from last time. After settling into our apartment we headed out for dinner to Jubilee Cafe (a favorite from before). After supper we walked to the Margit Bridge and down towards St. Istvan Ter (ter = square) and got some delicious rose gelato (gelato shaped into a rose not flavored like rose). Then feeling quite tired getting only like 2 hours of sleep out of the past 35 ish hours we headed back the apartment and to sleep.

Today was lovely and relaxing. I slept til about 2:30 pm (only 14 hours) and relaxed around the apartment with my mom for about an hour until my dad came home from lunch with his great Hungarian friend Zoltan. Then we all made our first trip to Aldi! (which used to be a couple metro and bus stops away but some time in the past three years a new one has arrived just around the block from us). Then back out for a quick dm (drugstore) stop and an early dinner at Hummus Bar. After which we bought our public transportation passes. Then we met Lena, a student who lives in Budapest but had come to Grand Rapids for interim. With her we walked to St. Istvan Ter and then over towards Deak Ferenc Ter where she had gone to high school. There is a festival called Sziget Fest that is coming soon to Budapest and in anticipation there is this ferris wheel called the Sziget Eye at Deak Ferenc Ter that we rode and saw quite a good view of Budapest. After that we walked through some streets with restaurants everywhere heading towards Szimpla a place I'd only heard of but my parents and the (2011) students had gone. Lena told us the theme of the place was decoration out of trash. One booth was an old car converted into a booth. It was loudish and dim but kinda nice - I had a freshly squeezed lemonade with oranges in it. Now its midnight, but only 6 pm on our bodies, and we are back in our apartment both mom and dad tucked into bed.

I've never blogged before so I'm not sure how this will go but if you want me to keep going (I probably will even if you don't) or want more information about the semester just message me on Facebook or comment if thats an option I suppose.

Goodnight.